indecent objection
by Suk-fong
Summary: See I didn't just get friendzone, I got Hermione Granger-ed. And that is why your best friend should never be a guy. (Or how Annie Cresta writes romance novels and doesn't realize a love story until she's in a foreign country.)


**disclaimer:** disclaimed.  
**dedication:** Sohypothetically  
**notes:** So this was supposed to be happy birthday porn, the equivalent of birthday sex. But some how it didn't work out. So...here, have this instead! Happy birthday and I'm so sorry this is late!

* * *

There are worst things in the world than having your best friend be a guy.

Like AIDS.

Or whatever the fuck is going on in Syria.

But sometimes, like right now where even Beyoncé can't drown out the gutted moans that go something like _"Oh Finn…oh yeah, oh right there oh my …oh my..ohmyohmyohmyohmy_", yeah these are the times when I wish I never met Finnick Odair.

See, girls should live with guys unless they are married, the wise words from my not-Grandma-Grandma; and normally I would agree with that. Sort of-fuck you I'm an old fashion girl. But see Finnick and I clicked when I joined the swim team at eighteen at our university. He was a year ahead of me, and we have the same really bad sense of humour and the same Louisiana routes-though he's from some small ass town, that I've never heard of and I'm from New Orleans. And when you meet someone who understands that you're quoting _Dirty Dancing_ and _Fight Club_ all within the same sentence, and then quotes _Star Wars _and _Pulp Fiction_ back at you and it makes some sort of weird twisted sense? Yeah you become best friends.

I'm making myself lemon tea in the kitchen when the girl-blonde, leggy and whose name I was never given- comes stumbling out of Finnick's room, with Finn trailing in sweatpants. I get to witness over my tea cup him kiss her goodbye, and make no promises to ever call her again. Finnick is one of the best marine biologists I know-granted that I only know two-but there's not a woman alive who can keep him going back for seconds.

'Seven.' I say, and Finnick grins at me. He has the post sex hair-the amount of unfairness that boys can have great sex hair and I can't even get decent sex hair is exponential- wavy and ruffled copper curls that he furthers screws up by running his hand through it. 'She wasn't that creative with her words.'

'Really Cresta?' he hip bumps to let him into our small galley kitchen, where the table we made-well he did most of the cutting and hammering and choosing old resurfaced wood while I chose the corner of the kitchen it could sit in- is covered in my latest literacy nightmare. 'When I'm banging a girl and she can't string a sentence together you deduct points?'

'Yup,' I tell him proudly. 'I mean how hard is it to come up with something like _Jesus fucking Christ Finn you feel so damn big, do me harder!_'

Finnick snorts, 'Got some writer's block, do we?'

'Yeah it fucking sucks.'

Finnick shakes his head and musses up my hair, tangling the dark strands that don't curl nicely and are too thin to actually keep curls into something more like a rat's nest, 'You'll get it Cresta, I know you.'

It's totally in my head the way the overhead lighting in our apartment flickers in a way you could sort of call it ambiance, and the way I want to think there's something deeper, more substantial and real in his green eyes.

But I swear to god in that moment when I exhaled and he inhaled everything was right.

And then he took his hand out of my hair, proclaiming loudly that he needs a shower, and I'm left holding my tea cup and my breath.

The real reason why guys as your best friend sucks? It's because you can fucking fall in love with them.

* * *

**To: **Gloss

**From: **Finnick

**Subject:** Girls are weird don't live with one

Hey,

Annie is fucking insane. I think it's her writing time of the month when she begins to self-doubt everything.

Our entire kitchen is like a paper factory exploded and she's pinned up character profiles over my Fish Spawning poster.

Not cool Annie, not cool.

She gets like this at least once a month, when she's got all this crippling self-doubt and thinks some thirteen year old on the internet can write better sex than she can.

They can't PS because no man alive can have a ten inch dick and have it able to have sex.

But she isn't listening to me at all, so I keep on buying more tea (I don't think she even realizes we run out after about three days. JFC that woman is 90% wet plant leaves) and keep on buying whiteout and more pens and play **Star Wars- **the original trilogy none of that prequel shit, and hope she'll get out of it soon.

We should really buy stock in office supplies.

Work is fine. There's this big joint project with the San Diego aquarium and Snow wants me to go.

But that's right at the time her draft is going to be due and I can't go away for a whole month at that time.

Annie will…set the place on fire or something.

Anyway, I gotta go back to work.

F.

* * *

I write romance novels as a living. The historical bodice rippers in the highlands of yesteryear where a Scottish accent and a kilt with a sword was all a girl needed are generally what I write, but lately I've been branching out to some sort of modern day things. My newest series is called _Skinny Bitches_, the affectionate term for this clique of five women in their mid-twenties who are either searching for Mr. Right or Mr. Right Now.

And because I write romance novels for a living I know that things like Finnick and me don't end the same way they do on the screen of my laptop-or really in the millions and millions of notebooks (my first draft is always on pen and paper.). The best friend doesn't become the BF and the girl stupid enough to move in with the guy she's loved since she was twenty-two ends up with two cats, a lot of money and fancy cars while the best friends meets the Woman (who is probably taller and has bigger boobs because um, hey puberty, it's been a while can my boobs grow in?) who makes him understand that tissue woman not really cool, and forever and ever with happily adjusted children they go to.

Now as charming as that is; and trust me it's pretty damn charming because that's _how Skinny Bitches: Screwdriver _went and that's on the New York Times Bestseller list for a whole fucking year. Holla. That isn't actual ideal for me. Mainly because I'm allergic to cats.

And here's reason number one why it won't work: Finnick Odair really only sees me as his best friend or worst his sister.

I got Hermione Granger-ed.

And really on paper we don't make sense, and in practise we don't make sense either. He listens to all these indie bands that I don't know of, reads all these deep books-_The Lightness of Being_ is his favourite book, I'm sorry it's horrible. It's sparse and boring and you don't feel any sympathy for any of those characters. Like I sat there reading the damn book and all I could think is _when is it over_? He's all tall, muscular swimmer-like and gorgeous and knows it. He's also got a bunch of tattoos and makes V-necks and wool sweaters work for him with his hipster designer black square glasses.

And me? I'm Top 40 and YA lit-fuck you those are good stories. I'm light beer to his whiskey and scotch and I wear clothes that are pretty and cute in the mainstream way. I'm tiny and people think I'm just twenty-one instead of a grown twenty-six.

We don't make sense and not in the pretty perfectly broken way, but in the real life how the fuck would this work out if I don't like you taste in books or music.

So really I should know better-I do know better. But apparently I'm a masochist.

My roommate in second year told me over box wine her boyfriend bought us that you know it's love when you realize you've had a crush on the same person for more than six months. I don't know if that's true. But I do know that at karaoke that night when I realized I was head over heels fucking drowning in love with my best friend all I could think of was, _well no shit._

I guess I'm not a really good romantic.

* * *

**To: **Gloss

**From: **Finnick

**Subject:** No fuck you

I do have a life besides Annie.

Fuck you.

Annie and me are in a very complicated thing where I have to figure out how to make her see she is the end of the day type of girl. All or nothing.

The Rose to my Leonardo Di Caprio.

She's just a bit blind right now.

But seriously, fuck you.

* * *

The thing is Finnick isn't the person you would picture as a romantic novel hero. He lies a lot. Nothing really big, but his stories are all not exactly true. He's had some long term relationships, and enjoyed them well enough. They never ended in bad terms, and he's never said no to one.

He's got a good steady job, and is in line to receive a promotion within the next year or so. It's not that he's bad at commitment, no once he's with a girl he's only with that girl; it's just he's not too tied down, nothing can rock his boat.

He didn't have the easiest childhood, his mother left him and he was in the system for several years before he got adopted out when he was thirteen. Even his time in the system wasn't that bad, he made a friend an older boy named Gloss but they lost contact. Unfortunately for him, his adopted mother died of cancer when he was twenty-one.

Finnick isn't the romantic hero type, he's grounded and stable and he leaves without leaving. He stays around, not moving because of all his time moving, not desperate for an adventure, or to save a girl.

He's just here, and he puts down roots but they aren't deep.

* * *

**To: **Gloss

**From: **Finnick

**Subject:** Who told us it was going to be fun being an adult?

Be a scientist, they said. You like fish they said. Marine Biologist is fun.

Yeah no.

I also got sting rayed.

Not fun.

I don't want to die before I see my children being born.

Do you think Cajun accents are genetic? I mean mine is gone since the system, and Annie's comes back when she's tired or drunk, so there's a chance our kids could have really nice Cajun accents in the middle of Seattle.

That will be a riot for their teachers.

Fuck.

Okay, forget that because that is like Step 100090 in the Annie Cresta to Odair plan.

And we're not even starting the plan.

FML.

Don't you wish you were still in grade school when you can pass note with boxes to be checked off?

Yeah that would be perfect.

Super fucking easy rejection coming in one little blue pen x.

Good thinking Odair.

Good thinking.

* * *

'Why aren't Mary and Ryan happy?' Jo asks me over what is allegedly a pretzel stuffed with a hot dog. Jo is my editor, she was the one who found my story in the slush pile when I really was in no position to write anything-what do you know about love when you're twenty?-and turned shit into gold.

'What do you mean?' I just have a normal pretzel, because I do not have any dreams of dying before I hit fifty because of cholesterol problems. 'They're happy.'

'Then why is Ryan always with April?' Jo smothers her pretzel dog in mustard while I can only shudder. Oh god she's going to die. 'If Mary and Ryan are supposed to be planning a wedding, why is he hanging out with his old roommate?'

'They're best friends, it's natural.'

Okay so maybe Ryan is based on Finnick. Like carbon copied in all his six foot three Louisiana glory. Sue me. Finnick's hot and everyone wants to sleep with him. It doesn't matter if it's a paper version.

Also Finnick doesn't read my books because they aren't substantial or wordy things about fish that have flat heads so he'd never know.

'Bullshit,' Jo says devouring half of the pretzel dog, 'Nothing about you and Odair is normal.'

'Hey!' I'm mildly insulted, not fully because let's face it it's true, but my friendship with Finnick is one of the most important and defining parts of me, so I get to be a bit insulted. 'But it's not me and Finnick it's Ryan and April.'

'Which is the same fucking thing.'

'No it's not! April and Ryan are from Mississippi and April does web design and is taller and has bigger boobs!'

Look in my books I can be a b-cup and you can't fucking stop me.

Johanna rolls her eyes, 'Whatever. But seriously, the latest draft you sent me makes Mary and Ryan feel like strangers not an engaged couple that used to fuck on the hood of his car in the middle of the day.'

I don't know what to say to that, so I just eat my pretzel quietly.

* * *

**To: **Gloss

**From: **Finnick

**Subject:** UGH

Snow keeps on telling me I have to go to the San Diego thing.

It's so fucking annoying. I don't wanna go because a) I specialize in deep sea fish, the creepy fish not dolphins and pretty stuff.

God.

He needs to get Cashmere or someone who actually knows about this stuff. Not me.

Why do I stay?

I could just go get my PhD and be happy with it.

I should do that.

Actually I should ask Annie if she wants to move. She likes Seattle and I was the one who dragged her out of Vermont so she might not want to move.

I'll ask her tonight, if she thinks I should get my PhD.

Later,

F.

* * *

'Hey Cresta, I'm home!' Finnick calls as the door opens and he kicks off his loafers. I make some sort of grunt in return and when he comes into the living room, I'm spread out on the coffee table, pens stuck in my hair every which way and a cold cup of tea to my left as I read and re-read the draft. 'Hard day at the office?'

I flip him off as he crashes down on the couch beside me, stretching and pulling me into a weird sideways hug. I don't melt into him, or relax or anything a proper heroine should do when her intended love interest (if only in my head) initiates body contact. Instead I tense, and kind of bring my lap top with me.

'Fuck,' I swear, 'Cock sucking motherfucker Jesus fucking Christ.'

'Language Cresta,' Finnick sings. 'You know what happens when you're a swear bear.'

'If you put your dick in my mouth I'll bite it off.' I say that absently, and then wince.

We don't have that sort of banter. I mean we have good banter, but we don't have the type of banter that makes any allusions to us having any sexual contact. That's crossing the Hermione Granger line.

I don't look at him to see his expression; I don't really want to because well I would really like to have his dick in my mouth.

I love giving head, it's actually almost better than sex, and I have no gag reflexes; I can shove eleven mini powder donuts in my mouth.

But the thing is we don't talk about me giving Finnick head. We don't, that's just off limits go straight to jail do not pass go.

'What's wrong?' Finnick shifts him-and me by association- into more of a couch lay in the corner, his hands steering the laptop so he's got a better look at the screen.

'I fucked up,' I say banging my head against his chest.

'Well obviously,' Finnick says, 'but being specific would help.'

'I mean it's totally wrong and never going to happen, but if I read this draft-fuck if I read the rest of Skinny Bitches- without knowing the overall plot and all of that, you can totally think that Ryan and April are in love!'

'Okay and this is bad how?'

'Because,' I exit out of the screen and go to the Wikipedia page for the series, 'Ryan and Mary are already together and they were the first story and _how the fuck in eight books have I just fucking noticed that they barely appear together?_' My voice begins to tinge on hysterical as I make a second browser and log into my author fanmail email, and pull up a list of all the messages containing the subject "April and Ryan"-that's over twenty pages of emails, 'Over five hundred emails of people who read my books and think April and Ryan have a better developed relationship than Ryan and Mary.'

'Then make Mary and Ryan break up,' Finnick suggests logically.

'They can't break up!' I yell, 'These books are supposed to sell real life love stories!'

'Then let April have a story.'

'She can't.' I think I'm scarlet in the face, angry at myself and Finnick for really no reason besides being logical. I sit up and move away from him.

'Why not?'

'Because April doesn't get a love story. She gets her web site design business which becomes hugely successful and several cats and she becomes Auntie April and is the best man at Ryan's wedding because that's how her life goes!'

I'm shaking at this point. It's so stupid. So fucking goddamn stupid.

Because he's being logical, he's never read it. He doesn't know that April is me in book form, and Ryan is him and he thinks that obviously if April and Ryan have a large portion of screen time together they should be together forever and ever amen because that's how it should go.

He doesn't know that I want that so fucking badly but guess what real life doesn't have fairy tales like that. And even in my book world April and Ryan won't ever be together.

I don't hate myself that much.

Finnick opens his mouth to say something but I stop him.

'Forget it. Just-drop it. I'm gonna…I'm gonna go for a run or something.'

I turn off my laptop and grab my purse and my keys and my heels and leave.

* * *

**To: **Gloss

**From: **Finnick

**Subject:** I think I messed up

So remember Annie's current series? **Skinny Bitches**. I know you haven't read them but it's basically some sort of fictional world with a bit distorted

So there's a character named Ryan, which is me (fuck off it's not my ego it's actually me. Like with the lack of the same name and he's not from Louisiana) and there's a character based on Annie named April. And Ryan is with this blonde girl named Mary and they're supposed to be in love but all the readers think that are actually meant to be.

Which is not that bad of a thing.

I mean why shouldn't Ryan and April get together? At least fictional me should be able to sleep with the dream girl-even if she's not really Annie.

But she threw this giant fit. She told me that they could never be together and when I tried to ask why-because you know why can't Annie and me Ryan and April be together?

And then she left.

And I am sitting here on the couch so fucking confused.

* * *

The first rule of creative writing, according to my professor, a slender, elderly woman with dark hair and a rather yellow complexion like she's got jaundice, Dr. Wiress, is that never write yourself or the people you love into your work.

Write parts of them in, like their tendency to always be late, the allergies to tomatoes or their turn of phrase, but never them. Because one day fiction and reality will split messily and you will be left with a caricature of someone you love, similar enough you could believe if you squinted but just smoke and mirrors that would leave you empty when you re-read your work.

She told me that writing is putting your soul out in the open, letting people see the bumps and bruises, the molting of the skin. That writing traits of the people you love is immortalizing them forever in ways they will never die.

Dr. Wiress was my favourite professor and I was quite sad when she past. I wrote her in, as April's grandmother, the woman who lives in the small townhouse April lived in that Ryan once shared before his engagement.

She was right.

April and Ryan are not real, but Finnick and I are. And because I wrote Ryan with Finnick in mind, flesh and blonde becoming ink and paper, the readers only saw Ryan the way I see Finnick, with this ugly disgusting unconditional never ending love that's just the worst.

It makes perfect sense for them to fall in love with Ryan, and since I wrote Ryan and April's relationship the way it is in real life in fiction, with the teasing, the stupid inside jokes and code words and eighties and nineties pop culture references like a second language, of course they would believe that Ryan and April should be in love.

But Finnick is not Ryan.

And I am not April.

I think I forgot that.

Or maybe I remembered it too well.

I don't know.

* * *

**To: **Gloss

**From: **Finnick

**Subject:** She's not home yet

I didn't even get to ask her about the PhD.

Christ is the idea of dating me even in books that disgusting?

* * *

I go to the bar. Twelve is a hole in the wall dive bar that Johanna dragged me to and made me promise I would go with her every week. It took me long enough to figure out that she was trying to seduce the bartender/owner, a man closer to forty than thirty named Haymitch.

No, I don't understand the naming either.

It's my favourite place to drink now, due to how laid back and small town honky tonk it feels. There's a same group of locals out on the patio out back, smoking and drinking beer talking about the going ons. The game's on, and it's basketball which I know I grand total of nothing about so I ignore it to sit to the bar.

'I'll have a Canadian,' I tell Haymitch who nods and moves to pour me a pint. 'Wait no. I want a gin and tonic.'

'Y'sure about that darlin'?' Haymitch asks, an eyebrow raised.

'Yeah, make it a double please.'

Haymitch makes no other comment, but a few minutes later I have a glass on a coaster in front of me, and a staring bartender.

'Thanks.' I say and I drink it without hesitation, and the liquor burns my throat as I swallow while he watches, waiting for me to say something.

I'm a chatty person, the girl at the bar who makes friends everywhere because I want to hear their stories, I want pieces of people I can harvest and use-the only reason why Jo and Haymitch's relationship hasn't made it into _Skinny Bitches_ is that I signed a legal binding contract to say I'd never write it.

Did you know that before he poured drinks Haymtich was a lawyer?

He stopped practising when he lost a majour case against the Panem Mining Company for neglect causing death for a group of miners about…ten-ish years ago.

'Go away, I'm not going to be your cliché,' I tell him. 'I'm fine. Go make sure Brutus doesn't set your patio on fire.'

Haymitch gives me another look, but I stare him down and he rolls his eyes and heads to cater to other customers.

I'm alone with my thoughts, and I finish my drink.

I get the new bartender-Katniss, again with the weird names-who looks apathetic to everything that goes on in the bar, to make me another drink, and I'm nursing that one when Gale Hawthorne slides up to me.

'Drinking alone?' he asks, his own hands wrapped around the neck of his beer.

'Cheers,' the tumbler and the bottle clink, and we're left listing to really bad country in the background. 'I wish you weren't with Madge,' I say, 'I could use a really good fuck.'

Gale and I used to fool around, back before his high school sweetheart moved into the area for work. I like Madge, she's kind and warm and fuzzy. She's everything a guy could want, the exact opposite from Gale who looks like he's always one argument away from skipping town.

From the side of my eye I can see Gale's got an amused expression painted on with rough brush strokes, like he's trying not to laugh.

'What, Odair's not-'

'_Stop,_' It's more of a whisper, maybe a plead and I don't know how he heard me. 'Please just…just stop.'

Gale nods sharply, and we drink in silence.

That's how it should be. The friendship between a guy and a girl, the one me and Gale have. I mean yes, we slept together, but it was never anything serious and it was always physical. I was never emotionally involved, and neither was he. It's an easy friendship, with lines and boundaries that we don't cross, with no physical contact, no intimacy that makes it different from when I talk to Jo or Haymitch. He's just my friend.

* * *

**To: **Gloss

**From: **Finnick

**Subject:** it's a fucking Wednesday night

Where the fuck is she?

It's almost two.

She left at like six.

Where the fuck could she be?

She's not answering her phone at all.

What is she's dead?

Oh my god.

Annie is dead.

Oh fuck.

Oh fuck.

Cocksucking motherfucker Jesus fucking Christ.

Annie is dead.

* * *

When I get home, four gin and tonics later curtesy of Gale who walks me home and then after making sure I successfully get into the duplex Finnick and I live in, saying goodbye with another nod, Finnick is waiting up for me on the couch incredibly engrossed in reading _The Lightness of Being_ in the original Belgium or whatever language it was published in originally.

I'm not quiet-he never is-when I kick my heels off and drop my keys and my purse at the doorway, locking the door behind me and intending to go straight to the kitchen to drink a gallon of water before going to bed.

The best thing about being a writer is that as long as I hit my quota of words a week, I can sleep in.

Suck that Mr. Marine Biology I have to be at the Aquarium for six every morning.

'Where were you?' Finnick asks, stopping my stomping around towards the kitchen. 'It's two thirty.'

'So?' I resume my path to the kitchen, throwing open the cupboard where we keep drinking glasses and grabbing one.

'You said you were going for a run. Where the fuck were you running?' Finnick says in a tone that really means I'm pissed off but I'm trying to be calm. He's followed me into the kitchen, and it feels like I should apologise for keeping him up.

'Why the fuck do you care?' I mimic his tone, filling my glass with brita filtered water. It's bullshit; I don't have to apologise for anything. Not a single fucking thing. He's not my dad, or my boyfriend or even my Ryan.

He's just Finnick.

'Because I thought you were fucking dead.' He says it like it's obvious, like it's the only answer. And it hurts. It hurts so much because he cares and he just doesn't care about me the way I want him to and I don't know how much longer I can do this.

I don't know how much I can live with him and laugh at his good jokes and give him shit for the bad ones, and judge the girls he brings home, compare them to me and figure out all the ways I fall short.

It's all in my head I know, and I'm not worse than any of those girls, they aren't better than me. But it's not me who Finnick kisses, and sleeps with. It's not me and I want it to be me and staying here isn't making it better, I'm not getting over him.

How did Hermione Granger manage to keep herself sane when she was camping all throughout Europe with Harry?

I'm not a martyr I'm not strong enough-if that's even what being strong is; I'm going to be selfish and weak because I don't want to see Finnick be happy if it's not with me and I need to leave because of that.

'Well I'm not but don't fucking worry next time I'll call you before I come home,' I say and I put venom in my words, because I don't want him to be caring, I want him to be angry, to be mad, to hate me or something so that I can finally get over him and move on with my life. 'In fact don't worry about me, I'm moving.'

Finnick freezes, his mouth open like a fish out of water and he tries to form words. It's an ugly expression on him.

'What?'

'Yeah,' I say my grip on the glass feels like I'm trying to make it cave in on me. 'I'm moving at the end of the month.'

'Where?'

'Prague.' I blurt, the first city that comes to mind. 'I'm moving to Prague.'

I push past him before he can say anything else.

* * *

**To: **Gloss

**From: **Finnick

**Subject:** She's alive

Not dead. Drunk and she's moving to Prague.

And she won't talk to me at all.

What happened?

* * *

I don't sleep, instead I start making every preparation to go live in Paris for a year. There's a lot of paper work, and I have to pay to get it done quicker so I can leave.

I also have to calls Mags, my not Grandma, and tell her we're moving to Paris for a year.

The best thing about being a writer is that I can work anywhere in the world.

Finnick isn't in the apartment when I emerge from my room to go run errands and get my and Mags visas all done.

I think that's for the best.

* * *

**To: **Gloss

**From: **Finnick

**Subject:** Prague isn't even a real city

It's just…a city.

Like who the fuck goes to Europe to go to Prague?

They go to Paris.

Maybe she was just really drunk and thought she said Paris not Prague.

That's cool. I can totally do my PhD in Paris.

I'll just learn French.

Everything will be fine if she just will fucking talk to me.

* * *

'You're a fucking idiot,' Johanna tells me when I pop into her office two days later. 'Why the hell are you moving?'

'I need a change.'

'And Prague is a change?' Johanna asks, 'Do you even speak…Prague?'

'Czech,' I correct mildly 'They speak Czech and no I don't. But it's okay. It's an adventure.'

'Or a runaway?'

'Adventure,' says I firmly, 'I'm twenty-six, I deserve an adventure.'

I deserve some form of happiness and love that isn't being in love with my best friend who doesn't think of me like that at all.

That's all in subtext, which I'm sure Johanna reads like it's in caps lock and flashing. She shakes her head.

'Fuck, I didn't realize that telling you that people want Ryan and April together would make you jump ship.' Johanna mutters, but it's too loudly for me not to hear, and by the way I burn pink on the cheeks and the glint in her eyes makes it well known that she wanted me to hear that.

'It's not jumping ship,' I argue. 'It's leaving for some time abroad. And they're wrong, you know. Ryan and April aren't meant to be together, they don't have anything in common. Ryan's just overtly lazy and comfortable with April and April is-April is-'

Jo is looking at me expecting words that I will not say, that I will swallow down and bite off my tongue because I refuse to say them out loud.

I'm stupid to fall in love with him.

I know that.

I won't let Johanna mock me for it.

'April is stagnant,' I say finally. 'She's moving without moving and now she has to move on. Ryan is going to be with Mary and they're going to be happy. They're going to be the most happiest couple in all of Skinny Bitches and April is going to be fine. So they don't know a thing-_not a fucking thing._'

'Fine,' Jo leans back in her seat, and it's very clear that everything isn't, 'whatever you say.'

'Exactly.' I breathe in from my nose and out from my mouth. 'Whatever I say, goes.'

And I'm going to Prague.

With Mags.

* * *

**To: **Snow, President

**From: **Odair, Finnick

**Subject:** Re: San Diego

Dear Sir,

After much consideration, I will go to San Diego for the next month and a half as you advised to help on their marine life in the Maritimes exhibit.

F. Odair,

MSC Marine Biology

* * *

I don't see Finnick for the entire month. I'm sure he's there, but I rented a car and packed up all my things and went back to New Orleans.

I never knew my father, and my mother died young, so I was raised by my grandmother and Mags. My grandmother past when I was in third year, so the only family I have left is this woman who smells like spices and sugar cane.

I don't really fit in New Orleans, I should as a writer, feel comfortable, but it's too small-or at least my neighbourhood is. It doesn't fit me properly, but I wear it casually, like an old sweater that's seen better days.

'Annie,' Mags says when I cross legged on the floor sorting through clothing and books and such that we're bringing to Prague, 'Why Prague?'

That's a good question.

I legitimately know nothing of the place, I chose it randomly out of anger, but I'm not going to change my mind now.

'Why not?'

It's the wrong thing to say, because she lists every reason why Prague is a bad idea, starting with the language barrier-she can speak French but its Louisiana creole French, and she doesn't think it will work. My suggestion to write everything down got me a swat on the arm.

'And it's so hard t'get flights petite, how'll Finnick visit?' Mags finishes.

'He's not visiting.' I say firmly.

'Of course he is. Dat boy woul'n't leave you in Prague petite.'

'He's not coming Mags,' I tell her. 'He's not going to see us at all. I haven't spoken to him in weeks.'

Mags clicks her tongue, 'Why'zat?'

'Because,' I say and I can't choke the words down and it doesn't matter because we're leaving on Friday and when we come back he's never going to speak to me again, because I hurt him.

Well I don't know if I hurt him, but I'm leaving and that's what happens to Finnick-everyone leaves him. His mom, his foster brother Gloss, everyone leaves Finnick so he leaves before he can get left behind.

'I can't be in love with him anymore.'

* * *

**To: **Annie

**From: **Finnick

**Subject:** Joke's not funny.

It's been a month. You can stop being mad at me for no reason now. I'm sorry for yelling at you for coming home drunk and late, I was just really worried.

You can come back home now.

It's really weird and empty and I want you back.

Love

Finnick

**((Are you sure you want to exit without sending?))**

* * *

Airports are the same no matter where you are, are really the exact same. There's the same stale air and burnt coffee and tired eyes and sweat that clings to everyone as they come and go and just want to get their body to a bed and get the ideal time zone figured out.

Prague is no different.

I google mapped our way from the airport to the small apartment we're renting and figured out what the quickest and cheapest route is. My French is shaky, and Mags chimes is as we direct the taxi driver, arguing when he tries to take us somewhere in the scenic way to get to our apartment.

We collect our keys from our landlord, she has sharpened teeth in a way that I don't understand and a stern disposition but she speaks English and she helps us figure out how to turn on the oven properly, before nodding goodbye.

We're here.

'Petite,' Mags says looking out at the view. 'I hope dis adven'ure is wort' it.'

Of course it is.

There can't be anything else but worth it, getting some piece of mind, having Finnick a million miles behind me where I don't have to see him fucking some random girl-not that I ever saw that-and wondering what the fuck is wrong with me?

Because I think that's it.

Knowing that we don't have anything in common, knowing that we make no sense, and it doesn't work and god it's been four years I need to let go of him. Knowing all of this, and still hoping, still wishing that Finnick will wake up and realize I'm in love with him.

Maybe he has.

That's a scary thought, terrifying nightmarish but I don't burn it out, stamp it down because I've entertained it before, when I was still sure it could happen in some sort of version of reality.

Maybe he does know I'm in love with him and thinks he's doing us both a favour by pretending nothing is there because he doesn't want me to humiliate myself.

That's worse.

* * *

**To: **Johanna

**From: **Finnick

**Subject:** Sorry about the strip show

How is she?

I haven't emailed her or called her or anything, like you told me. But it's been ten months.

She's my best friend Jo-I just want to know she's okay. Because something set her off, she was screaming at me and we don't fight like that.

We don't yell at each other. But she was yelling at me and she was mad at me and I don't know why, and I know you know so why can't you tell me?

I miss her a lot.

F.

* * *

I write in cafés and in parks. I write, going through notebooks and notebooks. I like buying moleskin ones, but instead I buy school ones, blue lines ready for diction and I write and I write.

It's almost feverish.

I was never going to write April's story-there are lines I have and if April is me that's some self-prophesy there that I don't particularly want to get into. But I've left America, and that's changed in the way I write, the lens is different.

The storyline for Skinny Bitches has changed too now. I can't get Layla's story out, which is the one that is supposed to be next, I can't because I have to write about April.

I have to write about April being in love with Ryan and knowing it's bad, because sometimes toxic relationships aren't the ones that are poisonous, and abusive, sometimes it's the ones where you're constantly sad because you aren't enough even though it's not his fault.

Because he doesn't know.

Only Ryan knows, Ryan knows April is in love with him, because when they were doing karaoke when they were twenty-two and twenty-three, she kissed him instead of doing nothing, and Ryan told her no; their friendship meant too much to him and he would never let it go for something that they had no guarantee would work out.

So April agreed and they went back to being friends, but there was always an undercurrent of something being off, of how you can't go back to being friends if someone is in love with the other, because that's always there on the periphery.

They thought they could do it; they couldn't, so April left for Paris-not Prague.

It's semi-autobiographical but not enough. I don't want my soul out there for everyone to see and to judge me on how fucking stupid I am.

I already know they're going to judge April.

But April doesn't fall in love with some French man-you can't transfer four or so years of emotions that intense to someone else in the span of a few months; no she finds herself, she gets a direction and she stops thinking would Ryan care because in the end he might care, but not the way she wants and she should never let her life be dictated by that.

* * *

**To: **Annie

**From: **Finnick

**Subject:** They brought Pumpkin spice back and it's not even October yet

Hey,

How's Prague? How is Mags? How are you?

Seattle's rainy, and I don't go to Pike Place anymore because it's really weird if it's not you telling me what fresh vegetables we need to get.

I miss you a lot.

I applied to get my PhD at NYU and I haven't heard back yet but I think I'll get in.

That's what I wanted anyway, to be a professor and to teach remember? You just wanted to write and I just wanted to teach, and I used to think we could spend forever in that really shitty apartment in Burlington as long as we had a lot of coffee (or tea) and Netflicks.

But then Snow offered me the job and we needed the money because hell we had a lot of student loans-okay maybe it was just me. And we moved to Seattle.

I know you don't like Seattle that much.

But I thought you were happy.

I thought we were happy.

What happened?

Why won't you tell me?

I miss you.

Love,

F.

**((Do you want to exit this window without sending?))**

* * *

The email I get from Jo when I send her back the finished draft of April's story to the best of my abilities and Mags satisfaction that there is a point to the story is brief. Its three words with no signature, blunt and to the point the very epitome of Johanna.

_Are you sure?_

My reply is one word, three letters.

_Yes._

* * *

**To: **Gloss

**From: **Finnick

**Subject:** Oh.

Oh.

Oh my god.

Holy fuck.

She loves me.

She _loves _me.

!

ME!

She totally does!

April moved to Paris to get over Ryan because Ryan is in love with Mary she thinks.

But Ryan isn't in love with Mary. Mary is just there because April never told him that he had a chance and Ryan is too chicken and in love with April to fuck up their friendship because friendship is better than nothing.

I need to go to Prague.

I need to go to Prague right now

* * *

I like Prague.

It surprises me as much as the next person, because it suits me better than New Orleans and it fits me much better than the duplex I shared with Finnick.

So when the year is up, Mags asks me if I want to move back to the States. I ask her what she wants to do, because I have decided since Mags is getting up there, closer to the years that end soon, I will go anywhere she wants to go.

Mags nods, and declares we will stay in Prague until we want to leave. Our house in New Orleans keeps on getting rented and we send for the rest of our clothes and things.

I contemplate buying a house in Prague-it must be cheaper, but I don't actually know how international real estate works, so I'm spending more time researching it than writing right now.

It's okay, I have to remap the rest of _Skinny Bitches_, because April's leaving rewrites a lot of things, but it makes it better I think.

Mags is at a café down the street, so I'm pulled out of research by the knocking of a door. I figure it's one of the neighbours who need me to deal with the Wi-Fi router, so I'm really gobsmacked when I open the door and it's Finnick on my door step.

Finnick is spotting stubble and a shirt that it looks like he's worn for a few days straight and his eyes are red and puffy from lack of sleep.

'We don't have a dog,' Finnick says and his voice sands like whiskey on sandpaper, smooth but with an edge like he's not used it in a while, or he's got a cold.

'What?'

I don't know what I was expecting Finnick to say the next time I saw him-if I ever saw him again. But I am very, very sure I never expected him to say that.

'We don't have a dog,' he repeats. 'Or a gold fish or a cat or anything.'

'We weren't allowed pets in that building?' I remind him, very unsure and confused of why we are discussing the rules for that duplex back in Seattle.

'I know.' He stares at me, and I stare back.

I know that I should probably move aside and let him in my apartment, but I don't know if I want to. I've spent the past year and three months trying to get over Finnick and I'm afraid if I let him in, all of this hard work to remind myself that he doesn't love me-that we're just friends.

I actually don't know if we still are friends.

Friends probably need to talk, and we haven't.

'I don't want to be Tomáš ,' he tells me and I nod, like I understand.

'You're Finnick.'

'No I-' he's struggling with words and I don't know what to do, so I just stand there while he tries to string out sentences before he gives up and pulls three books from his bag on the floor.

The first one is April's story, released only four days ago, the second is the first book in _Skinny Bitches_ when Mary met Ryan, and the third is _The_ _Unbearable Lightness of Being_.

I can't breathe.

'I don't want you to be Tereza or April and I don't want to be Ryan or Tomáš ,' he tells me in a rush. 'I don't want to fuck other girls while there's a woman I love hurting because of it.'

'What are you saying?' I croak because I don't understand. This doesn't make sense it's not right.

Finnick isn't supposed to be with Annie. Annie is the boring girl, the one who watches and waits and sees life go by being passive.

Tomáš should have been with Sabina and Ryan with Mary.

Not me.

'I'm in love with you.'

Oh.

_Oh._

'But we don't make sense!'

'So?' Finnick says, 'It's been almost ten years of not making sense with you. Why can't you just realize we make sense and I'm fucking in love with you.'

'This is confusing.' I say more to myself, then to him. 'You're confusing. You're…you're-you love me?'

'I know.'

'No,' I say and I'm surprised borderline hysteria isn't in my voice. 'No you are not fucking quoting goddamn _Star Wars_ at me. Not now. Tell me why the fuck are you in Prague?'

I'm a smart girl; I can logically guess why a marine biologist with no need or attachment to Prague is actually here. But that's dangerous. That's something like hope that he wants me or loves me or misses me and I can't have that.

'I'm in love with you,' Finnick says it through gritted teeth, waving the book around like it's all he can do. 'I've been in love with you for years but you made it very clear I should move the fuck on.'

'How?'

He almost throws Mary and Ryan's book at me, 'Well you fucking threw me-Ryan into some other girl-is it supposed to be Glimmer?'

'I hadn't met Glimmer yet,' I tell him. Glimmer, pretty blonde and a small smile that looks like it was carved with knives is the lawyer for my books. My voice drops, 'You read them?'

'Of course!' Finnick looks insulted like he'd have read anything but, 'I buy them the day they come out and read them that same day!'

'But why? They're not deep or educational or about fish!'

'_Because you wrote them._' I stare and he's glaring me down, silently yelling at me if I interrupt him. 'You wrote them Annie, so why wouldn't I read them?'

He called me Annie. He hasn't called me Annie in years, not since-not since the first of the _Skinny Bitches_ books was published. Not since Mary and Ryan got together.

'And I spent-I spent,' Finnick swallows like these words are hard to say and he doesn't want to say them but he has to say them to make things make sense, because I'm off in my head and I don't know what to do anymore because oh my god Finnick told me he loves me.

Me.

'I spent three fucking years thinking fine, yeah okay fuck it hurts like a motherfucker because I'm in love with my best friend, my roommate and Jesus Christ you were sleeping with Gale. _Gale. _But you made it super clear that we were only best friends and that's all. And then you got so fucking upset when people told you Ryan and April were in love and what was I supposed to think Annie? You were disgusted over the idea of us together even in fiction. And then you left.' Finnick exhales and he's not looking at me, but on a little splotch in the wood floor.

'You left and it was hell. I didn't know what to do with myself.' Finnick says, still looking at the floor. The tips of his ears are ready and his voice is uneven and forced calm. 'Everything was wrong, everything hurt and I told myself not to chase after you because that doesn't work in real life. And then you—and then you published this,' he motions to April's story, brand new but the spine is bent and the pages already thumbed through. 'And I find out that April's been in love with Ryan for almost as long as I've been in love with you and fuck I got on the plane because I don't want there to be a French man or a Prague man or a…a whatever. I just want there to be me.' He finishes out of breath and staring me down.

I didn't notice I was holding the door knob and the door frame as support, until Finnick moves closer to me, almost close enough that I could stand on my tip toes and kiss him, but there's a gap between us, one for me to breach.

'You're…you're in love with me.' It's meant to be a question, but it comes out like a statement.

'Since college,' Finnick says, something shinning in his eyes, blindingly bright. 'Madly, deeply completely and thoroughly in love with you.'

I nod, flipping those words over and over inside my head.

Me.

Finnick is in love with me.

'Do you love me?' his voice is small, like a boy not a grown man and there's a lack of confidence of suave that Finnick usually projects. He's scared, nervous I'm going to reject him on this door step in Prague.

'Yes,' I say breaching the distance between us. It's this look of love in his eyes, I'm completely inept to describe it, but its love and I just can't believe it. 'Yes I do.'

I kiss him and maybe things make some sense.


End file.
